


i didn’t drown (i couldn’t seem to die)

by stardustgirl



Series: the dead go on before us [1]
Category: Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: (Very slight but. It’s there.), (well. this fic is like. HOW they get dead/imprisoned), 3 Things, 3+1, Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Dark Ezra Bridger, Episode s02 e11: Legacy, Episode: s02e13 The Protector of Concord Dawn, Episode: s02e21-22 Twilight of the Apprentice, Everyone is Dead, Ezra Bridger Gets a Hug, Ezra Bridger Has PTSD, Ezra Bridger Needs a Hug, Feelstember, Feelstember 2020, Fluff, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Inquisitor Ezra Bridger, I’m sorry this is very sad, Kanan Jarrus Has PTSD, Kanan Jarrus Needs a Hug, Minor Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla, Parental Kanan Jarrus, Prequel, Purple Prose, The Empire Wins (Star Wars), or in prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:00:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26540284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustgirl/pseuds/stardustgirl
Summary: Three times Kanan was there for the truth, and one time he wasn’t.(Prompt fill for “Truth” for Feelstember.)
Relationships: Ezra Bridger & Kanan Jarrus
Series: the dead go on before us [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882459
Comments: 1
Kudos: 31
Collections: Feelstember 2020





	i didn’t drown (i couldn’t seem to die)

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Referenced Torture, Referenced Parent Death, Suicidal Ideation (brief/not acted upon), Death of a Parental Figure, Seven Being A Creep, Victim Self-blaming

**1.**

Kanan is there, when he learns of his parents’ fate.

Kanan is there, providing a shoulder to cry into as he shoulders the truth, the ache deep within his bones, and tries to pick the pieces of himself up afterwards.

Kanan is there, just as he always is, and Ezra doesn’t realize (yet) just how much of a blessing ( _a curse, because he made you dependent on him and his softness_ ) this man is to him. Instead, Kanan finds him, finds him where he found his own parents minutes before, and warns him of the lateness of the hour.

Ezra stares out at the moons, and tries to suppress the ache.

* * *

**2.**

Truth is Sabine going out to a Mandalorian moon, fired up as ever with a flame in her step as she promises vengeance on those who nearly killed their mother— _mom, he hasn’t ever realized that that’s what Hera is to him until now—_ and returns, alongside Kanan, with a prisoner in tow.

Truth is knowing Sabine could have killed the man—Rau, he’s called (he’s pretty sure he dies later, in the attacks on the fleet that he and Kanan caused with loose lips and a mangled form of _mercy_ ), and he’s as bitter as a caged Loth-cat, though that’s to be expected; Mandalorians aren’t as easily put into cages as songbirds are—but knowing that Kanan set her on the right path, just like he did with Ezra, reminded her that rage isn’t the same as healing.

Truth is knowing Sabine still holds a grudge, deep like the ruts in the mud of the plains that are formed by the Imperial tanks trekking through his homeworld and setting it alight, but that she keeps it hidden for the sake of Kanan and Hera.

Truth is knowing that even though they are their parents, he and Sabine are both still a bit alone in their own way (that’s what being orphaned does, he finds, as he pricks himself upon the frayed ends of his bond with Kanan once more), and that Kanan and Hera can only do so much.

* * *

**3.**

Kanan is there with him, is there with him to hold him back as he watches Ahsoka be cut down by the Sith Lord Vader, is there with him to hold him back from attacking in a ferocity that would cleave his lifespan in half (and he half wishes he wouldn’t have done so), is there with him to hold him back and away from the edge of the yawning maw that accompanies being resigned—outwardly, at least—to your fate as a lamb to slaughter.

Kanan is there with him as they embrace after torture, as he sobs brokenly about the lies they’d fed him and Kanan returns his unasked questions with the truth and they swap roles and do it all over again until they manage to fall unconscious just before the cycle starts anew.

Kanan comforts him as best a broken man can, and Ezra wishes that he was stronger for both of them.

* * *

**+1.**

Kanan is _not_ there to comfort him, to tell him the truth, when Ezra is held back from preventing his whole world from shattering in a single blow.

Ezra _screams_ and _sobs_ and _splinters_ into fragments of bone and tragedy across the polished floors of an Imperial installation he still can’t name as the crimson emerges from Kanan’s chest, as the light emerges from Kanan’s eyes, as the breath emerges from Kanan’s lungs—

He still can’t remember much else that happened that day, whether in the moments leading up to it or in the moments leading away from it.

He knows, days after, Seven had to remind him repeatedly of the truth, that _Kanan is dead and isn’t coming_ back _you insolent brat so stop whining about it!;_ that _Kanan is dead and gone but don’t worry, pretty thing, I’m here;_ that _Kanan is unreachable and you won’t be joining him in the Force anytime soon if_ I _have anything to say about it._

He knows that, at some point, when the salt has been thoroughly rubbed into the sheen of ice spreading slowly across his open chest and lungs and heart, rubbed deep enough into the part of him that is the most dead so that it burned, that he has given up on truths and Kanan.

There is no savior from a hell you make yourself, Twelve knows. And that is the final truth he learns.


End file.
